Messing about by the river

With the exceptionally hot weather of late, getting outside with the children during daylight hours has felt somewhat of an impossibility, none of us cope well in the heat! So, it was a welcome relief to be able to join our mum, (Julie), and Benno (in his air-conditioned van) last Thursday evening, to sit on the cool banks of the River Stour and see a creature that I have never seen in the wild before...

The main reason for this trip really relates back to my dad, as all of these escapades seem to in some way or another.

As you all know if you have been following this blog for a while, Dylan (my dad) was a really good wildlife photographer, and he took some incredible images of the birds and animals that he found on his wanders through the wild. Here are some examples of how good he was with a camera.

A few weeks before we discovered he was very unwell, he had taken it upon himself to drive all the way to Burgess Hill to buy himself an enormous Cannon EF 600mm 1:4L IS USM lens, as a 70th birthday/ Christmas present. It is almost the same size as me! He always intended to take it out when he was feeling better, but sadly that never happened.

In the last few weeks of his life, when Benno and I said that we would like to continue with this blog, dad was really keen for us to learn to use his camera with the lens and take it out to do some wildlife photography. So, that’s exactly what we did. 

On a very warm summers evening, the three of us drove to a location along the River Stour, I can’t tell you where it is, not because it’s top secret, but because I have no sense of direction! Benno drove, I looked out of the window.

Thankfully our mum, is also a brilliant photographer, so, after we had carried all of the equipment to the riverbank, she was able to show Ben how to set the camera up and use it.

I don’t think that there is much better subject matter to photograph on this river than beavers in the wild. I had never seen one in the wild and I have to say that I was not disappointed, they came so close to us, I was able to film them with my phone. They seemed completely unfazed that three humans and a giant camera lens were staring right at them.

Here are some of the first images that Benno was able to take with dad’s lens. I’m sure dad would have been proud of our efforts and would have probably laughed at Benno carting a lens and a giant tripod up and down the banks of the river! I definitely giggled more than once.

There will be plenty more photos taken with that lens, I’m sure. It was a really special way to spend an evening and to remember dad. I wonder where we will go next…